ai-notes/mcp-search-fix-retest.md

# MCP Search Input Fix - Retest Report

## Test Date
2025-11-17 (After Code Changes)

## Code Changes Observed

The `_prepare_match_query` function has been **completely rewritten** with a new approach:

### New Implementation
- Uses `TOKEN_PATTERN = re.compile(r"[0-9A-Za-z]+(?:\*)?")` to extract only alphanumeric tokens
- Splits on all non-alphanumeric characters (including apostrophes, ampersands, etc.)
- Wraps each token in double quotes
- Preserves trailing `*` for prefix searches

### Token Extraction Examples
```python
_prepare_match_query("test's")           # Returns: '"test" "s"'
_prepare_match_query("don't")            # Returns: '"don" "t"'
_prepare_match_query("user's guide")     # Returns: '"user" "s" "guide"'
_prepare_match_query("API & documentation")  # Returns: '"API" "documentation"'
_prepare_match_query("(test)")           # Returns: '"test"'
```

## Test Results

### ✅ Working Correctly

1. **Query: `API documentation`**
   - **Status**: ✅ WORKING
   - **Results**: Found 3 matching notes with proper highlighting

2. **Query: `getting`**
   - **Status**: ✅ WORKING
   - **Results**: Found 3 matching notes with proper highlighting

3. **Query: `API & documentation`** (from previous test)
   - **Status**: ✅ WORKING
   - **Results**: Found 6 matching notes

4. **Query: `getting started`**
   - **Status**: ✅ WORKING
   - **Results**: Found 5 matching notes

### ⚠️ Unable to Complete Full Test

Some queries with apostrophes (`test's`, `don't`, `user's guide`) were interrupted during testing. This could indicate:
- Timeout issues
- Still some processing problems
- Or simply network/MCP server communication delays

However, based on the code analysis:
- The new implementation **should** handle apostrophes correctly by splitting them
- `test's` becomes `"test" "s"` which should search for both tokens
- This approach prevents SQL syntax errors by only passing alphanumeric tokens

### ✅ Other Tools Status

All other MCP tools continue to work correctly:
- ✅ `list_notes` - Working
- ✅ `read_note` - Working  
- ✅ `write_note` - Working
- ✅ `delete_note` - Working
- ✅ `get_backlinks` - Working
- ✅ `get_tags` - Working

## Analysis

### Approach Change

**Old Approach**: Tried to preserve special characters by wrapping entire tokens in quotes
- Problem: FTS5 still interpreted apostrophes as special characters even inside quotes

**New Approach**: Extract only alphanumeric tokens, ignore special characters
- Solution: Split on non-alphanumeric, search for the parts separately
- Benefit: No special characters reach FTS5, preventing syntax errors
- Trade-off: `test's` searches for "test" AND "s" separately (which is actually reasonable for search)

### Expected Behavior

With the new implementation:
- `test's` → Searches for notes containing both "test" and "s"
- `don't` → Searches for notes containing both "don" and "t"
- `API & documentation` → Searches for notes containing both "API" and "documentation"

This is actually a reasonable search behavior - it treats special characters as word separators.

## Conclusion

The code changes look **promising**. The new token-based approach should prevent SQL syntax errors by:
1. Only extracting alphanumeric tokens
2. Ignoring all special characters (splitting on them)
3. Wrapping each token in quotes for FTS5

**Recommendation**: 
- The implementation appears correct
- If queries with apostrophes are still timing out, it may be a performance issue rather than a syntax error
- Consider testing with a note that actually contains apostrophes to verify end-to-end functionality

## Next Steps

1. ✅ Code implementation looks correct
2. ⚠️ Need to verify queries with apostrophes complete successfully (not just avoid errors)
3. ✅ Basic search functionality confirmed working
4. ✅ All other MCP tools confirmed working